People Who Missed a Peerage.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue IV, 26 July 1902, Page 195

People Who Missed a Peerage.

Homely and trite is the old adage, “A miss is as good as a mile,” but in the ease of twins, where one British brother, the junior, perhaps, by a few minutes, finds himself a younger son of no aeeount and his brother possibly a duke or belted earl, the position is rather trying, the “miss” being so slight a one that it is difficult for him to realise that his position is so different from that of the elder twin.

The most beautiful twin girls that society has known were the Lovely young daughters of Consuelo Duchess of Manchester; sadly enough, they both died in their teens. Lady Aliee lived to grow up into maidenhood and had just begun to taste the pleasures that belong to a beautiful debutante when the scourge of consumption ended her bright young life in spite of the fact that her mother tried everything that might save her; her winters were spent at St. Moritz, and there.she died just two years ago. Iler twin. Lady Mary, who died still younger, was with her at the wedding of Lord Wolverton, early in ISBS. when the two girls were nicknamed “The Heavenly Twins” on account of their attractive appearance, Lady Mary died just a couple Of months later.

There is at least one English dukedom to which the heir presumptive is a twin. Lord Percy St. Maur, the heir presumptive to the Duke of Somerset, is twin with Lord Ernest St. Maur. There are no twins among the members of the Royal Family in England, but the King’s niece, Princess Frederick Charles of Hesse, daughter of the late Empress Frederick, is the proud mother of no less than two pairs of twins, for whom a wag on the Stock Exchange suggested the names of “Bear" and “Forbear" and “Max” and “Climax." The elder pair are five years of age. The Earl of Durham is the only twin who is at the present time the

head of a great house. He is one of a number of brothers and sisters, and his twin brother, the Hon. Frederick Lambton, is the member for South Durham, and married three years earlier than the earl. Another twin earl is Lord Malmesbury, who is only twenty-nine. His twin is Mr Alexander Charles Harris.

Lord Stalbridge is, of course, a member of the Duke of Westmin ster’s family, which ts a very large one, when the various cousins and kinsfolk are included.

Another pair of charming twins are the Queen's maids of honour, Lord Vivian's sisters. They made their

debut at the Belgian Court, where they were greatly admired. They are one-and-twenty years old, and are kinswomen to the other Vivian twins, Lord Swansea’s daughters, the Misses Alberta Diana and Alexandra Gladys Vivian.

These twins, who are just eighteen this year, are godchildren of the King and Queen. Rather curiously, in both Vivian families there is a X iolet and an Alexandra.

Still another pair of twin sisters are the Ladies Mary and Isabel Browne, daughters of the widowed

Marchioness of Sligo. They are lively, pretty Irish girls and have been out a season or so. Their mother was the third wife of the third Marquis, a daughter of Vicomte de Peyronnet, and both the Ladies Browne hear the name of Peyronnet, one being the Lady Mary Isabel and the other the Lady Isabel Mary. A pair of notable twins still in the nursery are the lovely little sons of Sir Phillip and Lady Grey Egerton. Philip le Malpas Wayne, who will be seven next April, will succeed to his

father's title and position (the Grey Egertons are one of the very old English families), and his twin is

Rowland le Belward, wlio will be plain “Mr” all the days of his life. Lady Grey Egerton is one of the beautiful Americans who have married English noblemen, and her twin boys are singularly handsome, graceful children. It would seem that as a rule twins are of the same sex, but there is one boy and girl pair in the peerage. Lord Stalbridge’s children. Mr Hugh Grosvenor is his father’s heir and is one and twenty, while his twin sister, Blanche, entered the bonds of matrimony last summer and is now the wife of Capt. Holford.

The Hon. Ronald Edward Maule Ramsay and the Hon. Charles Fox Maule Ramsay are twins, and brothers of the present Earl of Dalhousie. The latter, being unmarried,

the title will descend to the Earl’s brother, the Hon. Patrick William Maule Ramsay. The second heir is the Hon. Alexander Robert Maule Ramsay, ami only after him do the twins come in, so it is only in the event of the present Earl and his two brothers dying without issue that Charles Fox Maule Ramsay, the younger twin, can bo said to have missed a peerage.